


Nothing But Trouble

by DreadlordTally



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-08 19:12:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15936557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreadlordTally/pseuds/DreadlordTally
Summary: Thought you said you weren't going to be a problem.





	Nothing But Trouble

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spacehopper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehopper/gifts).



Adam blinked down at the same sentence he'd been reading over and over for the last fifteen minutes or so.  He read it again, didn't process a single word of it, and shoved the report away.

The whole damn day had been like this.  He felt like some kind of sad vulture, circling endlessly and never landing on anything.  Maybe coffee would help—more coffee, he amended, pursing his lips at the four empty styrofoam cups corralled in a corner of his desk.  And while he was at it, he'd leave himself a note to buy a cheap reusable.

He pushed away from his desk, but before he could even get up, a hand landed on his shoulder.

"Jensen!  What are you up to tonight?"

"Sounds like you're going to tell me."  He resisted the instinct to shrug MacReady's hand off him.

"Very good, gold star, mate.  We're going out. Even bribed a bar owner to let you in, so up you get."

This time, Adam did shrug him off.  "I'm pretty booked."

"With what, drinking alone?  Beside's, I convinced Miller to come—"

"No."  He hadn't meant to say it so strongly, but no going back, now.  He jerked up to his feet and fled.

Or tried to.  MacReady got in his path, in his face.

"Look, Jensen, I don't know what your malfunction is with him, and I damn well sure don't know what Miller's is, but may I kindly ask the two of you to fucking solve it?  I get it, he's probably pissed you took such a massive bloody risk in London—so am I, by the way, what the _fuck_ were you thinking—so what is it?  You got your gears in a twist over whatever disciplinary he handed you?"

Adam looked off to the side, at the wall.  "Really don't want to talk about it."

Which could not have been more true.  He wanted off this subject, out of this room, and away from the possibility of ending up in a small space with Miller and alcohol.

"And I don't want augs on my team who behave like they're still in secondary school."

Adam shook his head.  MacReady could leave it, or Adam could continue soulgazing at this wall perpetually.

MacReady ran a hand over his head and sighed.  "It's a week back, and London was rough, mate.  They all need this, and whether you want to admit it, you do to.  So table this shit with Miller, and come out and drink with your fucking team."

Adam worried at his bottom lip.   _Damnit_.  How long had it been since he crawled out of his cave and pretended to be human for awhile?

Around them, some of the other agents and analysts had already filed out, closing down for the night, heading for the elevator.  A lot of smiles on those faces. A lot of relief still, riding in the wake of London. Would it be the worst thing to spend time with them?

It wasn't like he could avoid Miller forever.

"Fine."

Mac gave him a clap on the shoulder.  "That's what I like to hear when I extend an invitation.  Resigned acceptance.  But I'll take it, let's go."

Adam quirked up an eyebrow.  "You gonna follow me?"

"Don't trust you not to make a break for it."  Mac cleared his path and gestured him for him to go ahead. "After you."

They caught the tail end of the current group filing into the elevator, and Adam shuffled in behind and toward the rear.  The back of Smiley's head cleared his vision and left him face to face with Miller.

For the space of one breath, Adam couldn't move.  For the first time in the last week, they looked each other in the eye.  Adam glanced away first, rather than face whatever answers he might find there. He put his back to the elevator wall and they stood side by side as the thing lurched up.

"He rope you into it too, sir?"  Maybe they could just...go back to the way it was. Reset.

A wry twist of Miller's mouth.  "Said I'm still alive and I should act like it for once."

"I mean, he has a point."

A beat of silence between them, with the flutter of conversation from the rest filling the space, before Miller leaned over and pitched his voice low.

"Don't think you're getting out of that conversation we need to have."

Adam winced.  "Never assumed I would."

It wasn't so much the conversation he worried about, but rather the response he'd have to give.

The elevator jerked to a halt and it was easier then, letting them all carry him along like a tide, out into the cold air then into the warm smokey light of a bar not far from Miller's apartment complex.  Drinks made the rounds, backs were slapped, and the chaos of their ingress settled as people broke off into groups, found a place to put themselves. Mac leaned over the bar, having a quiet word with the owner, a wiry woman with freckles all over her face.  Mac pointed to both Adam and Aria.  Money changed hands, and Adam might have forgotten the neighborhood he was in except for one bitter cluster of patrons who shot him dirty looks through the entire night.

Aria sought Adam out first, then Smiley came around.  Auzenne dropped in on him with a couple of intentionally awkward jokes, and Chang even managed to hold a conversation with only two expressions of mortal panic.  They all came to him one at a time, whether by agreement or by a simultaneous decision not to crowd him.

He got a break and took the chance to exile himself to a booth in the corner.  The group who'd been glaring at him all night finally left, and Adam closed his eyes for a moment, let the row of drunken agents overwhelm all else.  Let himself remember a time when going out to drink with coworkers didn't feel like climbing a mountain. Let his shoulders relax and his hand around the glass of whiskey go slack.

Someone clacked their own glass down on his table and slid into the booth opposite him.  Adam opened his eyes, and braced himself.

"Should you be worried about the time?" Miller said.

Adam shrugged  "Curfew's long passed.  I'll just have to stealth my way home at this point."

Aria played it smart, quit the evening early to avoid trouble.  It said something, Adam supposed, that he hadn't taken that very reasonable excuse to get out of here at first opportunity.

Miller pointed at the whiskey.  "You haven't actually been drinking."

"Neither have you."  Miller still held the same bottle of beer he'd ordered hours earlier.  And all right, maybe Adam had been watching. To know that Miller had been watching him just as much confirmed some things for him.  He might have guessed, but he didn't know if it was better or worse to have confirmation.

"Good, then you're sober, and we can do this."

"I really don't think it's a good idea."  Better not to look too closely. Better, surely, to go through the motions of propriety and policy.  Avoid the subject and get back to work as best they could.  They'd both done more difficult things...right?

Out on the street, blue and red flashing lights approached, but no sirens.  Probably a couple of uniformed officers hunting for augs to harass.

"You know I have to say it."

 _I know.  But if you do, I have to answer_.

"Jim," he said.  "Don't."

Miller looked like the name stung.  He reached out, his hand falling to the table halfway between them.  "Adam…"

But behind Miller, in the street beyond, the flashing lights hadn't passed by but stopped, painting the front of the bar alternately in blue and red.  Two cop cars, with four officers climbing out of them.

Miller turned in his seat.  "What are they here for?"

 _They called them_.  The other patrons in the bar, the ones unhappy to have a couple of augs in their general vicinity.  And maybe it was time to activate his cloaking and get the hell out of there.

But the bar owner had already stormed out the door to confront the officers before they could enter, and Mac followed right on her heels.

"Fuck," Miller said, already heading for the door himself, and Adam could not have agreed more with that sentiment.  Nine times out of ten, Mac made for a loud and belligerent drunk.  The one time out, he got physically clingy and rather aggressively affectionate, but Adam wouldn't bet on getting the rare friendly drunk version of Mac here, not with the way his luck panned out lately.

And now voices raised, and Adam caught some of it.  The officers, pointing his way, going on about curfew and assisting an aug in breaking the law.  The owner, in turn, defending her private property. And Mac, trying to push past Miller, getting far too close and far more combative than those officers would tolerate.

 _I have to go out there._  The second the police had him in their reach, they'd leave the owner alone, he was sure of it.

Chilly night air hit his face in a rush when he opened the door.  "Hey," he said, loud enough to be heard, neutral enough in tone—he hoped—not to sound hostile.  "Let's calm down, there's no need for all this."

"There he is, finally."  The officer looked him up and down, distaste writ in the twist of her mouth.  "Decided not to hide behind Natural citizens anymore, aug?"

"Something like that.  Look, I just lost track of time.  I can go straight home, it's not a big deal."

"You're going straight into a cage.  Arrest him."

A younger officer moved to obey, but Miller stepped in his path.  "He's still on private property."

The woman, who seemed to be in charge, put a hand on her taser, a hefty looking thing made specifically for dealing with augs.  "And does he intend to sleep there, hm? No augs are to be on the streets past curfew!"

"Fucking low-rent local cops."  Mac again, working himself up in a way Adam didn't like.  "You blind as well as stupid? You've seen our credentials!"

And Mac waved his badge right in the woman's face.  She whipped her baton out, right for him, and Adam, he didn't think, he just lunged, right into the space between them.  He could have caught her arm, or shoved her away, or dodged, but even in the madness of the moment, he held on to one mantra.   _Don't touch them.  Don't resist._

He got one arm up to take the first blow but the second, from another officer, got his head.  The bite of a taser crackled through his systems and his vision and audio shorted out while blows from the batons forced him to his knees.

It only lasted a few dizzying seconds before his augs shook off the jolt.  He stared down at damp pavement, his own blood making red paths through the cracks in the stone.

"All right, all right!"  Miller's voice cut through all the yelling, and he took Adam by the arm, urged him to his feet.  The left side of his head throbbed and the tickle of flowing blood trailed down his face.  Every officer had a weapon out now, but Smiley had drawn Mac away, back into the bar.

Still salvageable, still a chance for everyone else to walk away unbloodied.

"See there?"  Miller pointed to his apartment building across the way.  "That's where I live.  I'm taking him. Will that work for you?"

The woman drummed her fingers along the butt of the assault rifle she now held.  "Fine, go," she said. "Get him off the streets and keep him there until curfew is over."

"Come on," Miller muttered to him.  He held on to Adam's arm—physical support that Adam didn't need, but given the blood running down his face and the eyes of the cops boring into his back, he'd take it and be grateful.

At least the courtyard of Miller's apartment complex was deserted this time of night.  As soon as they'd broken line of sight with the officers on the street, Miller let Adam go and ran both his hands over his head.  "Fuck."

"Yeah."  Adam trailed his fingers along his face and they came away wet with blood.

"How bad is that?"

"It's not.  Just bleeding a lot.  Sentinel will take care of it."  He'd have some bruises all along his shoulders from the beating, but those, too, would fade abnormally quickly.

Miller searched his face.  "Is that true, or are you just being a martyr again?"

That nearly got a laugh out of him.  "It's true, I promise."

"At least that's something.  Right, let's get you taken care of, then."

He followed Miller inside and retracted his eyeshields in the same moment as he closed the door, facing pale artificial lighting and an apartment that was not as unfamiliar as it should have been.  Absurdly, he worried Miller might somehow know. He would swear the guilt was radiating off him.

In the sudden quiet, in the absence of all the noise and sensory overload of the last few hours, the blood trailing down his neck and soaking into his sweater became rather immediately unbearable.  
  
"Get all that off."

And in spite of everything going through Adam's head, in spite of every inappropriate thought he may have had since London and any hang up he might have had about getting half naked around Miller, none of it stood a chance against the opportunity to get the bloody clothes off his skin.  He left his coat on a hook by the door and they got his sweater tossed into Miller's washing machine, and, thank God, it all felt too clinical and utilitarian for him to dwell on his state of undress, or on how this was the first time Miller had seen the connection points gripping his shoulders, the open Typhoon ports in his skin.

Until Miller beckoned him into the kitchen.

Miller stood at the sink, running hot water over a washcloth.  He'd rolled his sleeves up, and the muscles of his arms flexed as he rung the excess water from the cloth.  "Come here. Let's see how bad it is."

Adam stayed where he was, just out of reach.  "That's really not necessary. Like I said, Sentinel will take care of it."

"Well, it's necessary for me, so get your ass over here."

Adam managed a couple of shuffling steps forward before stopping.  Miller sighed—heavy, drawn out with exasperation—and met him the rest of the way.

"You can be so goddamn difficult."  Jim laid one hand alongside Adam's head, steadying him, while the other ran the warm cloth over his forehead, grazing his hairline.  Jim's thumb moved in slow, firm circles beneath the cloth and Adam felt the sticky cling of the blood lift away as Miller massaged down a long the side of his face, to his jaw, then his neck.  His other hand cupped the side of Adam's face and there, his other thumb also began to move, caressing in small circles.

Adam closed his eyes at the heat of the cloth and the electric, near-forgotten feeling of another person's hands on him.  He leaned his head into Jim's hand, chasing the sensation.

Jim sucked in a breath, and his hands stilled.  He swallowed hard, stepped away.

"Go on and take the shower.  Clean the rest of that off." His voice gone husky, deeper.  Adam didn't miss how Jim had to keep readjusting his eyes upward, back to Adam's face.

Adam took the chance to flee.  He turned sharply and had to stop himself from running to the bathroom just to get out of sight and put a door between them.

That helped, being alone.  He let his forehead hit the door and stayed that way for a bit.  Kind of wished he'd gotten drunk after all, then he'd have something of an excuse for this shit.  For not being able to keep it together at the first touch of Jim's hands on his body.

Right.  Shower.

And still— _still_ —he couldn't rein his thoughts back in.  With scalding hot water pummeling his head, he kept circling back, around and around.  Jim, standing so close he could feel the heat off Jim's body. Jim's hands upon his face, so measured and deliberate in his touch that Adam got a shiver of pleasure down his limbs just remembering it.

And Jim, back in his London hotel room, fresh out of quarantine.  So exhausted and weak, he did little else but sleep for three days straight, and then came the convalescence, the long days of Jim trying build his strength back up enough to travel again.  Jim at the window, looking out across the London nighttime skyline. And Adam, trying to be supportive, trying to be a steadying presence, laying his hand on Jim's.  Their fingers interlocked, Jim drawing him closer, Adam letting himself be drawn.

"You haven't left once," Jim had said.

"And I won't."  Twelve days, at that point.  Twelve days of recovery from a biological agent that nearly killed him.  Twelve days in which Adam had refused to leave, afraid that they'd come for him again.  Afraid that he'd lose him so soon after they'd seen the truth in each other.

Jim's arm about his waist, and a kiss against the lights of downtown London.  Adam feeling malleable and open as clay as he sank into it.  He would have done anything that night, let  _Jim_ do anything.

And then, Prague.  Regret, reality. Things they needed to say and couldn't.  Things they wanted to have and couldn't.

 _He's going to say it tonight_.  And Adam would have to respond.  After all this, the way Jim had looked at him tonight, he kind of wanted to get it out in the open.

Adam emerged back into the kitchen, shirtless still and with his hair freshly clean and damp, mussed in a way no one had seen for years.

Jim gave him a sidelong glance as he entered.  Two steaming mugs of tea waited on the counter.

"The couch doesn't pull out, but I set you up with some pillows and blankets.  If you need more—"

"Just say it.  I know you need to."

Jim faced him like they were squaring off against each other.  He didn't take long to find the words. He'd probably been sitting on them for awhile.  Just like Adam had.  "What you did, at Apex? Throwing that antidote away just to save me? That can't ever happen again."

There it was.  And Adam couldn't lie to him, not this time.  Even if it wasn't what Jim wanted to hear, even if it cost him his job.  In this, Jim would know exactly where he stood.

"It will, though."

" _Excuse_ me?"  Felt almost good to face Jim's annoyance again.  That, at least, he had practice with.

"It will, it'll happen again, and I'm not going to pretend it won't."

Jim rubbed at his eyes.  "Let's start over, _agent_.  You had an advantage at Apex, an advantage that—"

"Uh huh, yeah," Adam said, cutting him off.  He stepped in close, unconcerned now with keeping his distance.  That ship had sailed the moment they started in on this topic. "I know all that.  Thing is, it doesn't matter. I can't live by the math. I'll do my best to keep my head in the game but, Jim...I'm not ever going to be able be dispassionate when your life is on the line."

Jim threw his hands up.  "Well, good. Fucking great.  Nice to know I can officially stop counting on you to follow orders."

"If it puts you in danger, then yeah, you can."

" _Why_?"

At least, if this got him nailed with a transfer, he would go knowing he'd finally been honest with a man who should have had his trust from the start.  "You know why."

Jim blinked at him, then backed away.  He planted both hands on the countertop and let his head hang down.  "This is the last fucking thing I need right now."

Into the silence, Adam projected endless responses, all of them bad, many of them contradictory.  He might have run away, disappear into the night and pretend this had never happened. He might have begged Jim's forgiveness for ever having put this on him.  He might have told him everything he'd never had the words to say, about how long and bitter his days had been when it looked like Jim may have been complicit in the bombings.  About how it tore him up inside to think of Jim as his enemy. About how badly he wanted to make up for all the time they'd wasted snarling at each other.

But instead, he laid a hand on Jim's arm, and he meant it to be a gesture of sympathy, maybe of apology.  He'd meant it as something simple. But his hand drifted down, into Jim's. And Jim turned his palm into Adam's, a slow slide of metal and skin interlocking as he laced their fingers together, as Jim turned his body into Adam's and they stood flush against one another.  Jim's other hand grazed Adam's waist, and Jim leaned in, alighting one, questioning kiss on his lips.

Jim leaned out again, but Adam chased him, and the tethers broke.  They kissed slow, unhurried, like they were becoming lost in one another by increments and neither wanted to find their way out.

Jim's arms went around him, pressing them harder together, and Adam's hips wanted to move, wanted to grind against him.  His bare chest against Jim's sweater made him feel exposed, on display, and it wasn't entirely unpleasant, himself half naked, with Jim's hands moving up and down the bare skin of his back.  
  
And god, it was just like London.  A leisurely exploration of one another.  Long, indulgent kisses, and a remarkable lack of hesitation.  Even with everything telling them this was a terrible idea, Jim still kissed him as though none of that existed.  As though nothing stood in their way and they would have this, as thoroughly and as much as they wanted. It shouldn't have surprised him.  He'd seen the kind of focus Jim was capable of. Seen him both staring through the scope of a sniper rifle and staring down a political adversary determined to put him off course.

Jim kissed him like he had never and would never kiss another again.  The intensity of it had Adam clenching his hands in Jim's jacket, making sounds in the back of his throat he didn't know he could make anymore.

Until Jim's mouth disappeared from his, and Jim retreated, shaking his head.

"I can't.  I _can't_."  
  
Adam closed his eyes, nodded.  "I know."

Of course.  Of course they couldn't, he knew that.  It was the worst kind of seductive madness to even have gone as far as they did.  He just about wanted to crawl in a hole somewhere and die. He shouldn't be here, and they'd crossed a line they could never uncross.  And still. He missed Jim's mouth on his already. Why did this feel so much like losing him, when they'd never had each other from the start?

"One of us has to be responsible."  Jim had a go at something like a smile.  "And I know I can't count on you for _that_."  
  
And Adam answered with a near smile of his own.  
  
A lot of distance between them, now, Jim nearly on the entire other side of the kitchen and still backing up, and a part of Adam wondered if Jim put that distance there because he didn't trust himself to be closer and maintain control.  
  
"Just...try and get some rest," Jim said.  "We'll deal with it all in the morning. Somehow."

And thank God, he turned his back then, and with Jim up the stairs and gone, Adam could breathe a little, break that spell, come back down to earth.  He took one long, deep breath, chasing away the memory of Jim's mouth on his, of Jim holding him like it meant something, like it meant more than one late-night mistake.

He would normally have slept naked, but he settled for leaving his shirt off.  He could do this. He wasn't a teenager, he could stay under the same roof with someone he wanted without making it an issue.  He could set that aside. He could.  
  
He lay awake into the night, eyes open, sleep nowhere close.  His mind tried to backtrack and his body tried it, too. He kept his hands clutching the blanket to keep them from straying anywhere else, and when that didn't work, he got up and paced.

 _I could leave_.  Sneak out into the night, go home.  Arrive at work tomorrow and act like nothing had changed.

The thought left him empty.  Too much like a denial, and in spite of the consequences, he didn't and wouldn't deny this.  He would deny Jim, and he wouldn't deny the effect this night had had on him.

The smallest of sounds from upstairs caught his attention.  Footsteps, he thought.  
  
He flicked on the smart vision and there was Jim above him, pacing as well, his hand up near his face like he was worrying at a thumbnail.  
  
Adam deactivated the smart vision, plunging himself back into darkness.  He hesitated only a moment before going for the stairs.

He made no effort to hide his approach, and when they came into view of one another, Jim paused in his pacing.  Both his hands fell to his sides. Light from the window behind cast him into silhouette, but Adam didn't need to see his face, or hear a single word.  
  
Jim met him halfway.  He caught Adam's waist and pulled him close.  Nothing slow about this kiss.  No questions now, only answers.  
  
Jim's hands were everywhere on him, exploring up his torso, running along the connection points where skin met metal, down along his arms, feeling every inch of him Jim could get to.  A surge of apprehension threatened to crest, but with Jim kissing him so aggressively, with Jim's hands now dipping lightly beneath the waistband of his pants, it all moved so fast and he let it carry him off, away from all that doubt that might have stopped him if he gave it a chance.  
  
Jim wheeled them around and backed him up, toward the bed.  He pushed Adam away at arm's length and ran his eyes over Adam's whole body.  
  
Adam swallowed, wanting to hide, wanting to to say something.  Before, they'd been dealing with the aftermath of the police encounter, and even after that, they'd been too busy arguing.  Not enough of a chance for him to get caught up in his own head about all this, but now...now Jim looked at him and actually _saw_ him.  

Bizarrely, Adam had the impulse to explain where they came from, that he hadn't chosen them himself.  He had the urge to explain them away the way you would an unfortunate article of clothing that you're stuck wearing because someone gave it to you as a gift.  
  
_They're not me_ , he wanted to say.   _They're not really mine_.  
  
It was denial of his augs that he hadn't felt for a long time, and just as immediately as the urge had come also came a fierce defiance of it.  Because they _were_ his.  They were him now, no matter where they came from.  
  
He couldn't have put words to it if he wanted to, but Jim didn't even give him the chance.  He finished taking Adam all in and grabbed the waistband of his pants and pulled Adam to him again.  
  
"You're so fucking gorgeous," he said into Adam's ear, his voice rough with desire.  He jerked open Adam's pants. "Show me everything."

A tremor shook down Adam's entire body, and it was equal parts arousal and fear, but fuck if he would let it stop him, now.  He'd wondered sometimes, over the years, what it would take to get him back into someone's bed. He could never really picture it, letting anyone see him like this.  And now that he was here, with Jim pushing him onto the bed, with the heady weight of Jim's body on his, it seemed so much easier than he worried it would be.

 _Go on_ , he told himself.   _Be nervous, be embarrassed.  But don't stop.  Not now_.

_Don't stop._

_Don't stop._

To himself.  To Jim, over and over again.

"You," Jim said, interrupting his own words with a desperate, deep kiss, "are nothing _but_ trouble."

"Yeah," Adam said, so close it was almost painful.  "It's...it's intentional."

He came harder than he ever had in his life, Jim's hand tangled in his hair and Jim's mouth swallowing his moans.  Soon enough, Jim went over the edge with him, and he stayed on top of him panting until he caught his breath and rolled away.

"Jesus," Jim said.  "What a terrible idea."

"The worst."  But Adam's hand fumbled for Jim's, and their fingers wove between one another, and Adam was grateful for the wave of exhaustion that crested over him, kept him from asking anymore questions or reminding himself just how badly he'd screwed himself over by doing this.  He plummeted down, into something like sleep.

But not for long.

An alarm chirped, and Jim came awake cursing.  Adam was up instantly, the HUD giving him the time.  "It's seven?  What happened?"

"I never set my first alarm last night.  A little distracted, I suppose."

Adam searched the floor for his pants.  "Tell them you had to sort some things out with the police.  That should be enough."

"Right.  _Fuck_."

Adam went through the day in something of a daze.  Every conversation he had, every encounter with every coworker, he could hardly concentrate on for the repeating accusation in his head.  

_You fucked your boss.  Did you think that was a good idea?_

The cold light of day cast their actions in unflattering shadow, and who was to blame for that?  Adam had been the one to walk up those stairs. Adam had weakened first. He'd be lucky if Jim _only_ transferred him and didn't do something worse.

Toward the end of the day, he sat at his desk, staring down the same report and the same sentence he'd been trying to process the day before.  And, just as before, MacReady joined him.

"Things didn't go well, I take it?"

"Sorry, what?"

MacReady nodded towards Jim's office.  "I was hoping the two of you might hash it out, but you're avoiding each other even worse today."

He really, _really_ could not talk about this now.

"Whatever it is, try to get over it, yeah?  Makes it awkward for the rest of us, you know?"

MacReady left him alone, and Adam sank his face into his hands.  He risked one look at Jim, smart vision cutting through the walls, and found him in almost an identical pose, at his desk with his head in his hands.

He'd ruined a good thing, hadn't he, in pressing this.  Taken something that could have been good, could have been a place they could both go when they needed someone they could trust, and he'd burned it up, dismantled it.  They could never undo this.

He spent the rest of his day rereading that one damn sentence, being absolutely useless, when the door to the antiterrorism office slid open and Adam picked up the sound of Jim's gait coming toward him.

"Sir," he said, swiveling in his chair and bracing himself.  He didn't know what he expected. There were still people around, it wasn't as though Jim would let him have it here, in front of everyone.

He certainly didn't expect Jim to slide a small bit of folded paper across his desk without a word.  Jim caught and held his eyes, worlds of promise there that made something like hope rise in Adam.

As soon as Jim had left, Adam unfolded the paper, stark white against the ink black of his hands.

It contained a time.  And a location near Jim's apartment, off the road and out of sight.

Adam tore the paper into pieces as small as he could get.  He tossed the report away, off to the other side of his desk.

He sure as hell wasn't getting any work done, now.


End file.
